\begin{thesisacknowledgments}        %% Use this to write your
                                 %% acknowledgments; it can be anything

The six years of Ph.D. life in Austin have been one of the most enjoyable experiences
in my life, not only because I have done work that I believe is interesting,
but also because I had the opportunity to work with and learn from a group
of smart, supportive, and kind people.

My advisors, Lorenzo Alvisi and Mike Dahlin, have guided me with their insights,
patience, and encouragement during the six years. What I have learnt from them
is far beyond the research work I have done and such experience finally motivates
me to follow their paths.

The other members of my committee (Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, Keshav Pingali, Michael
Walfish, and Emmett Witchel) not only helped improve this document, but also
provided insightful suggestions for my work and great supports for my career
decision. I also want to express my special thanks to Calvin Lin, who made my
defense possible by taking this time-consuming job as an observer.

My work would not exist without the help from other fellow graduate students in
the LASR group: Allen Clement, Lakshmi Ganesh, Manos Kapritsos, Jeevitha Kirubanandam,
Sangmin Lee, Prince Mahajan, Taylor Riche, Lara Schmidt, Mark Silberstein, Chunzhi Su,
Chao Xie, and Navid Yaghmazadeh. Other students have also provided great advice
during my work: Sebastian Angel, Trinabh Gupta, Owen Hofmann, Sangman Kim, Joshua Leners,
Don Porter, Srinath Setty, and Ed Wong. Thank you all for bringing passion and joy
to my Ph.D. life.

I would like to thank the staff of TACC and Emulab. It would have been impossible to finish my work
without their help.

Finally, I want to thank my parents and my wife Yi Huang for their patience and
understanding: six years is short for people who enjoyed it, like me; but six years is
long for people who were waiting, like my parents and Yi. I would not be the person
that I am today without them.





\end{thesisacknowledgments}          %% allowed in LaTeX2e par-mode.
